Birmingham Blues

I guess W postponed the start of his umpteenth vacation so he could sneak in three recess appointments as soon as the Senate left town for its spring break.

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday appointed as his top regulatory official a conservative academic who has written that markets do a better job of regulating than the government does and that it is more cost-effective for people who are sensitive to pollution to stay indoors on smoggy days than for government to order polluters to clean up their emissions.

As director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Susan E. Dudley will have an opportunity to change or block all regulations proposed by government agencies.

It’s more cost effective for people who are sensitive to pollution to stay indoors on smoggy days?  More cost effective for whom?  The people who have to stay in their houses, running their air conditioners (assuming they have them) and running up their power bills?  The children who can’t play outside for fear of an asthma attack?  The adults in desperate need of exercise who can’t step foot outside without coughing and wheezing?  Not to mention the damage that ongoing pollution does to other life on this planet.  But I guess none of that is important when contrasted with the need of polluting corporations to maintain their profit margins.

In a flurry of nominations and appointments, Bush also named a researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, as deputy director of the Social Security Administration. Andrew G. Biggs has been an outspoken proponent of converting Social Security benefits into self-directed retirement accounts, which Bush favors but Democrats have stopped cold. Bush nominated Biggs to that post in November, but the process stalled in February when the Senate Finance Committee refused to hold confirmation hearings because of his views on privatization.

And as ambassador to Belgium he installed Sam Fox, a St. Louis businessman and GOP fundraiser who contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat veterans’ controversial campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential race. The White House actually withdrew Fox’s nomination to that same job last week in the face of strong opposition from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

With the Senate on its spring break, all three received “recess appointments,” under which they can serve without Senate confirmation until the 110th Congress adjourns in late 2008 or early 2009, almost at the end of the Bush administration. Their nominations might have failed had they gone through the confirmation process.

Good grief.  What a brat!  Bush pulled this stunt in 2005 when he used a recess appointment to make John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations after he couldn’t even get confirmation from a Republican-controlled Congress (Bolton’s appointment expired when the 109th Congress adjourned).

Of course, other presidents have used the recess appointment power as well, and I’m sure some of them have done it for the same reason as Bush did — to get back at Congress for refusing to bend over.  Fortunately, not only is this Congress refusing to bend over and confirm bad nominees, it’s also willing to challenge the President when he abuses his power.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he plans to ask the Government Accountability Office to issue an opinion on whether the recess appointment is legal.

Recess appointments are intended to give the president flexibility if Congress is out for a lengthy period of time, such as the four-week adjournment in summer. But Dodd said the law was not intended to circumvent lawmakers’ approval.

Bush is still acting as if he had any political capital left, but his pockets are empty.  As Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter says, if Bush wants to get anything done for the rest of his term, “he has to take his thumb out of the eye of the Congress.”  I doubt he’s mature enough to do that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Stupid Conservative Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.